Randy's Tank and Learn Thread

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

What a beauty!! Love it!

Thanks, Rev. :)

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Ugly Surprise with Ammonia Dosing

I’m restarting my ammonia dosing, which has been turned off for a couple of months. I’ll detail what I’m doing in a subsequent post, but I decided to flush out the old fluid from the dosing lines and start fresh, glad I did.

The fluid to come out was terribly discolored. Not sure what that is from but I don’t think it is the ro tubing I used. It may be from the BRS dosing pump internal rubber tubing. In any case, I’ll keep flushing until it is clear.

It might even have been the case in the fluid reservoir, but I think I would have noticed that before dumping it down the drain. It’s an old Kefir (a liquid food like yogurt) container that is not itself discolored.

Color can be deceiving as it may involved very few highly colored ions or molecules, but avoiding it seems warranted.

 

[rishma]

Ugly Surprise with Ammonia Dosing

I’m restarting my ammonia dosing, which has been turned off for a couple of months. I’ll detail what I’m doing in a subsequent post, but I decided to flush out the old fluid from the dosing lines and start fresh, glad I did.

The fluid to come out was terribly discolored. Not sure what that is from but I don’t think it is the ro tubing I used. It may be from the BRS dosing pump internal rubber tubing. In any case, I’ll keep flushing until it is clear.

It might even have been the case in the fluid reservoir, but I think I would have noticed that before dumping it down the drain. It’s an old Kefir (a liquid food like yogurt) container that is not itself discolored.

Color can be deceiving as it may involved very few highly colored ions or molecules, but avoiding it seems warranted.

Aaaah! What is that? I have not looked at mine.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Magnifica Update

The anemone was in part less inflated near the end of the light cycle yesterday, which significantly concerns me. I had not noticed that recently, although when I'm away, that sort of change may be hard to detect through the web cams. Repeated end of light cycle deflation is the red flag of magnifica problems. Hopefully this is just new parent (of the anemone) jitters. lol

Three things were different yesterday/day before that might have contributed, or it may be none of these.

1. I fed the anemone a piece of scallop about the mass of a pencil eraser the day before. I'm going to halt feedings for a while.

2. I added 0.1 ppm ammonia to the return sump by dosing pump mid day, spread over 20 minutes. The display concentration could have been higher for a bit, but not over 0.2 ppm. I'm going to hold on ammonia dosing for a bit, but this seems least likely to me to be related.

3. I had increased lighting from about 40% full strength to 44% full strength, which would be about a 10% increase in PAR. Might have been too much at once and lighting is back where it was at about 40%.

Last night:

This morning:

 

[Miami Reef]

I highly doubt it’s the ammonia.

Either the par, scallop, or just random anemone behavior. I believe they go through normal cycles of retraction, but I never had a manifica, so double check with @OrionN

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Crab ID?

Anyone have an id of this hitchhiker crab that has grown a lot in the tank?

Ive not seen it doing anything problematic.

 

[dwest]

I’m not really a crab person but guessing Mithrax pleuracanthus from TBS website.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Mandarin

All the pods and phyto feeding them seem to be keeping this male mandarin going strong. I think he is more than twice as long as when he arrived.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I’m not really a crab person but guessing Mithrax pleuracanthus from TBS website.

Yes! Thx!

The fifth picture down at the tbs site looks exactly like it:

Shaggy Clinging Crab – Mithrax pleuracanthus

ID: Tan, brown, reddish in color with blunt herbivore type pinchers. They can be 1" - 3" -main photo credit Jason E.Tips: Mithrax crabs are vital to keep algae in check on a reef. These cleaners are active at night seeking out macro algae and nuisance algae. They will carefully clean around...

tbsaltwater.com

 

[X-37B]

Mandarin

All the pods and phyto feeding them seem to be keeping this male mandarin going strong. I think he is more than twice as long as when he arrived.

Stunning colors! They are such cool fish. Very nice.

 

[Oldsman]

Your clinging crab looks very similar to one we ended up removing after numerous rouge events. We constantly see 3 ruby mithrax crabs grazing on the tbs rocks though

 

[Hot2na]

The anemone was in part less inflated near the end of the light cycle yesterday, which significantly concerns me. I had not noticed that recently, although when I'm away, that sort of change may be hard to detect through the web cams. Repeated end of light cycle deflation is the red flag of magnifica problems. Hopefully this is just new parent (of the anemone) jitters. lol

Stop obsessing over it , and let it be ...for a while ... Also : I know as the chemistry guru -you just have to add something ...But I dont dose ANYTHING in my system .. Jaubert plenum keeps nitrates ultra low and trace elements dissolve slowly from the lower levels of the 4" aragonite base... water change of 15% every 90 days with fauna marin salt ... Lighting is all radion G4 100 pct on everything ..

 

[Garf]

But I dont dose ANYTHING in my system

Must be a very low demand system. Doesn't mean to say that'll work for most tanks though.

trace elements dissolve slowly from the lower levels of the 4" aragonite base

Only those elements that readily bind to aragonite, unless you are including food inputs, just to be clear.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Your clinging crab looks very similar to one we ended up removing after numerous rouge events. We constantly see 3 ruby mithrax crabs grazing on the tbs rocks though

What sort of rogue events?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Stop obsessing over it , and let it be ...for a while ... Also : I know as the chemistry guru -you just have to add something ...But I dont dose ANYTHING in my system .. Jaubert plenum keeps nitrates ultra low and trace elements dissolve slowly from the lower levels of the 4" aragonite base... water change of 15% every 90 days with fauna marin salt ... Lighting is all radion G4 100 pct on everything ..

Thanks for the info. :)

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

WWC Slimeball anacropora update

This coral is doing well and continuing to grow, but I may have to move it because the magnifica is expanding in its direction and is nearly there:

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Hard Coral Update


Recall a while back I purchased several frags from Top Shelf. Of those I bought that day, only the leptoseris is holding its own. The goniopora is on its last legs and the Oregon Tort has been slowly losing color from the bottom up and is probably dead today.

By contrast, whether coincidentally or not, all of the hard corals that have gotten locally (which were all larger) are doing fine and most have visibly grown. I think that I am going to take a cue from this and try to get hard corals locally when I can.


Goniopora:

Leptoseris:

Oregon tort

 

[Arkayology]

Yeah... that tort looks like a goner.

 

[Miami Reef]

WWC Slimeball anacropora update

This coral is doing well and continuing to grow, but I may have to move it because the magnifica is expanding in its direction and is nearly there:

Nice photo. I like the smooth texture of the anemone tentacles. The camera picked it up nicely.

 

[A_Blind_Reefer]

I don’t know how I’ve missed this thread……I’m not too swift!

I think this is absolutely fantastic! What real, everyday people should expect in their journey as well. It’s perfectly normal to have certain things not make it, for some to struggle a bit, not every single system starts perfect, and just takes off into that absolutely picture perfect specimen overnight. Kudos to you for being real and honest in your journey!